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Invasive species spotted in North End

Bird scooters in the North End

Roving UHub photographer Gary Chase spotted these two Bird rental scooters in the North End on Saturday. Riders are supposed to stay out of Boston, at least for now.

Meanwhile, Cambridge told the company to get its scooters out of that city, at least until officials can come up with some regulations, the Boston Business Journal reports.

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Comments

It looks like the scooters cost $1 to unlock and $0.15/min thereafter. I found one in Arlington over the weekend. They beep loudly if moved without paying which is annoying if just getting them out of the way.

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Saw one of these motorized rental scooters abandonded at the corner of the Mass. Ave. bridge and Beacon St. a few nights ago. This is a very busy intersection for pedestrians, cyclists and joggers -- it was dumped partially blocking the sidewalk without any consideration for those of us who use sidewalks.

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Yeah, people are definitely staying out of Boston. Definitely.

They're getting plenty of use in Somerville though. And amusingly enough yesterday morning there was one inside a shelter on the inbound platform at Sullivan. I can't believe someone actually rode one into the station and then carried it down the stairs.

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Just about any mode of transportation that is not a car is a good thing.

More bike lanes, setup congestion pricing for cars, increase the gas tax, expand blue bikes, create dedicated bus lanes, run buses more often...and move the bruins to maine.

There is your 6 step guide to making Boston a world class city.

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Leave the Bruins out of this, you Southie

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You Boston people complain way too much

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Right screw us bostonians for complaining about the redcoats back in the 1700s

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Who gives a shit?

They're just scooters.

Why do massholes feel the need to regulate everything?

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I have a strong inclination it's out of town yuppies bitching the most, but whatever!

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...if anything, its yuppies that ride scooters.

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- Privatizing a public good (sidewalk)
- Accessibility issues due to blocked sidewalks

I am not a particular fan of NIMBY and can acknowledge a number of real benefits. But if this is anything like traffic associated with "deregulating" taxis via Uber/Lyft, sidewalks are going to become quite difficult to traverse.

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Remember how cluttered Boston sidewalks were with newspaper boxes 15 years ago?

Scooters are nothing compared to that.

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There is a clear need to remove an occasional parking space for bicycle parking, motorcycle/scooter parking, and other vehicles that are reasonably scaled to the single human they transport.

One space can serve 20+ users, but CARS

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But Boston has 4 seasons, one of which is rather cold and includes deep snow.

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So what? You can bike around here without any special equipment through the end of December, usually. Speaking from experience. Yes, fewer people ride but that's not a good excuse. I bet fewer people ride because the city treats bike lanes as sidewalks as 3rd-class dump for snow.
Please see how Montreal treats snow removal. And how they and Quebec City have removable bike lane stanchions that form protected bike lanes in the riding season but go away during snow removal season.

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1 season isn't the whole year and doesn't justify taking up 20 spaces

Maybe you also forgot - racks can be moved!

Maybe you also forgot - people who don't own cars help pay for your car.

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People who don't own my car help pay for my car? Please explain. Am I missing some kind of subsidy or discount coupon?

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That pay for the roads you drive your car on? Snow removal so you can drive your car on those roads? Police who enforce (sometimes) the rules of the roads?

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Car specific taxes barely pay half the cost of driving infrastructure, even if you ignore a lot of indirect costs like damage and injuries from accidents, pollution, enforcement of laws, etc. So at least half of the roads your car needs are paid for with general taxes. Thus, you are getting subsidized by non drivers.

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Then buy a car and/or rent a car and quit being so upset about helping to pay for roads that are used by: ambulances, fire engines, garbage trucks, construction vehicles, police officers, cyclists, taxis, tractor trailers which bring food to grocery stores, city busses, handicapped-accessible vans which bring the disabled to doctor appointments, and so on and so forth. If you don't think you benefit fromthe city having paved roads then you might want to rethink that silly notion.

As a tax-payer I help pay for services that I do not use, but I'm fine with that because we live in society and it's not all about me, me, me.

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Giving you that one special precious magical parking spot that will solve all the world's problems for three magically special months of the year!

Somerville puts theirs away - at least they used to - once the snow hits.

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Yet most people continue to walk and many continue to bike in the winter.

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Put up a sign: "No car parking allowed Mar-Dec". That leaves most of the year for people to park bikes, scooters in the other 3 seasons.

(not to mention a decent chunk of people bike year round, and I've even seen a scooter or two in the winter before).

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I bike all winter and more people would do it if snow wasn't dumped in the bike lane and cars didn't park in the bike lane as snow was dumped in their spots.

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It looks like you can buy an electric scooter like the BIRD one for about $500, which isn't bad at all. That's the same as the cost of a decent bicycle. Unlike bikes, scooters are much more portable, and you could easily use one to get to work and then bring it up to the office with you. You can even bring one on public transit very easily. Whether or not public dockless electric scooters like this become a big thing, I suspect we'll see a lot more people buying them for everyday use.

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Huh... odd then that so many people in the city bike seeing as you say they are so inconvenient.

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which I also see people using around town.

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around town...in traffic. They use the traffic lanes like they're cars! I guess I should be grateful they're not on the sidewalk.

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If the city/region/state purchased and owned BIRD like scooters and allowed people to use Charlie cards to unlock them. Governments already subsidize other forms of transportation (including docked bikes), why not do the same with scooters?

As it stands we're letting a private company profit from using public spaces. Might as well have any money be used to improve the system instead of going back to out of state investors.

Publicly owned pay-to-ride bikes are common in Europe.

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I agree that for a short-ish commute, the scooters are not a bad idea. However, once the weather starts looking "typical" (today's perfect weather is the anomaly) I'd take a bike's larger, more stable wheels over the tiny wheels of a scooter.

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Oh I'm not dissing bicycling at all. I bike almost daily to get around. But finding bike parking can be tricky sometimes, and there are some times when I don't bike because it's bit too long or it's super hot and I don't want to get sweaty. I could see myself using an electric scooter in those cases. I will certainly continue to bike because I like the health benefits of it, but if I had a longer commute or needed to take commuter rail, I would certainly consider an electric scooter. In general, I think options are good.

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So you "win" the battle to keep another Starbucks out of the neighborhood and now you're going to rally to keep other good ideas out, too?
The scooters, just like the bikes-- will happen, and without a scooter hub near the northend- there will be scooters all over the place. Many people will avoid trying to navigate the neighborhood in a crowded nIght, it's not worth the trouble.

Focus on making the neighborhood better for the residents, not dumb shit like scooters.

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Hub? You do understand these are dockless, right?

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People are comaining precisely BECSUSE they are afraid of these being left all over. They don't have a hub or dock to keep them out of the way - they are dockless.

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It kind of sucks, some companies like Lime, worked for months with the various towns to iron out details and do it the right way. Then a company like Bird just drops off their wares unannounced and gets everyones pants in a bunch. Makes all of these ride shares look bad.

Also, in Austin TX the city is LITTERED with these scooters. So much so that I thought there was a scooter convention in town or something..

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Lime got off to a rough start, but their intent is good: they are working with the towns and I see solid evidence they're doing a quick job of reducing their initial locust-like plague down to the right size, and a much better job of distribution and placement.

Bird, on the other hand, can go eff right the eff off if they think they can just be another bunch of "disrupters".

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More than a story related to anything having to do transportation.

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You should have seen the existential dread and moral panic festival on Facebook when a Lime Bike showed up on the center zone of the Winthrop Circle Rotary in Medford.

OMG INVASION PANIC TERROR THE WORLD IS ENDING KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT.

I'm only slightly exaggerating.

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So Says the Upper Class Suburban Pseudo Socialist who doesn't have to deal with this shit being parked on her no-doubt well-manicured Suburban lawn. Membership does have its rewards, now, doesn't it, Swirly.

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What about that "bicycle" with the planter, which is actually an illegal billboard for a nearby business? Note the flat tire.

It's taking up sidewalk space in a neighborhood that needs every square inch, and nobody can use it for transportation.

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Who almost ran down a cyclist in the bike lane, before blowing through a red light in the middle of Mass Ave rush hour tonight - It's people like you that ruin it for everyone! You're over 30, you've probably got a college degree - And you can't understand how effing stupid this is?

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